The increasing threat of System Disruptions

As we stated before, system disruption tactics have been used by guerrilla groups and labor unions to destabilize large urban centers -such as Mexico City- by sabotaging critical electricity hubs or attacking gas pipelines.

On May 17th, MXSECURITY warned that…

“While these attacks have been political-motivated so far, they present a serious challenge to Mexico’s National Security in the context of the war against drugs and organized crime”.

We also stated that…

“In MXSECURITY we believe that there is a possibility that DTO’s could eventually attack critical urban infrastructure within Mexico’s most important cities”.

Well, two days ago Mexico City experienced a series of system disruption attacks organized by criminal gangs from the Barrio de Tepito, the city’s most dangerous crime hub.

Street Blockade (Picture: El Universal)

Hundreds of people -arguing that criminal gangs were kidnapping children in the barrio– blocked several streets and paralyzed traffic for more than 24 hours.

Although the protests would appear fair –the social demands seemed that way- it is now clear that criminal organizations orchestrated them in order to reassert their controlled territories.

The use of civilians to attack critical infrastructure under a social umbrella is a common practice in system disruption strategies for it complicates the response of police and security forces.

In MXSECURITY we still believe that system disruptions actions will keep rising as long as criminal organizations learn how effective –and relatively easy- these tactics are.

Security forces –mostly in the local level- should not underestimate this.